Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Buildbot VS CircleCI

Compare Buildbot VS CircleCI and see what are their differences

Buildbot logo Buildbot

Python-based continuous integration testing framework

CircleCI logo CircleCI

CircleCI gives web developers powerful Continuous Integration and Deployment with easy setup and maintenance.
  • Buildbot Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-21
  • CircleCI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05

CircleCI

$ Details
-
Release Date
2011 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Allen Rohner
Employees
500 - 999

Buildbot features and specs

  • Flexibility
    Buildbot supports a wide range of configurations and is highly adaptable to different environments and workflows.
  • Scalability
    It can handle multiple build processes simultaneously, making it suitable for large-scale continuous integration setups.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project, Buildbot is free to use and has a community that can contribute to its development and maintenance.
  • Customizability
    The system allows for extensive customization through Python scripts, enabling users to tailor it to their specific needs.
  • Extensive Documentation
    Buildbot has thorough documentation that helps new users get started and allows advanced users to dive into more complex configurations.

Possible disadvantages of Buildbot

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its flexibility and customization options, new users may find it challenging to set up and configure Buildbot initially.
  • Limited UI
    The user interface is not as polished or user-friendly as some other continuous integration tools, which can impact usability.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies can be cumbersome, particularly when incorporating different environments and complex workflows.
  • Performance Overhead
    The system can become resource-intensive, particularly with larger and more complex build environments, potentially leading to increased performance overhead.
  • Community Size
    The community, while active, is not as large as some other CI/CD tools, which might limit available support and third-party integrations.

CircleCI features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    CircleCI offers a user-friendly interface and straightforward configuration, making it accessible for both beginners and experienced users.
  • Scalability
    CircleCI easily scales with your project, allowing for flexible resource allocation and handling multiple workflows in parallel.
  • Extensive Integrations
    CircleCI supports a wide range of integrations with various tools and services like GitHub, Bitbucket, Docker, and Slack, enabling seamless workflows.
  • Speed and Performance
    With features like advanced caching, dependency management, and parallelism, CircleCI enables faster builds and quicker feedback cycles.
  • Customizability
    CircleCI provides powerful configuration options through YAML files, allowing users to tailor their CI/CD pipelines to specific project requirements.
  • Free Tier Availability
    CircleCI offers a free plan that includes several features, making it suitable for small projects and open-source contributions.

Possible disadvantages of CircleCI

  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While CircleCI is generally user-friendly, mastering advanced configurations and optimizations can take time and require a deeper understanding of the platform.
  • Cost for Higher Tiers
    The pricing for higher-tier plans can become expensive, especially for large teams or enterprises requiring extensive usage and advanced features.
  • Limited Concurrency in Free Plan
    The free plan has limited concurrent builds, which might not be sufficient for larger projects with high parallelization needs.
  • Occasional Stability Issues
    Users have reported occasional performance and stability issues, particularly during high-demand periods, which can slow down the build process.
  • Configuration Complexity
    If not properly managed, the YAML configuration files can become complex and difficult to maintain for larger projects, leading to potential misconfigurations.

Buildbot videos

Craig Rodrigues - Migrating Python.org to Buildbot 9 and Python 3 - SF Python Meetup

CircleCI videos

CircleCI Part 1: Introduction to Unit Testing and Continuous Integration

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How To Setup CircleCI On Your Next Project (Vue, React, or Angular)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Buildbot and CircleCI)
Continuous Integration
12 12%
88% 88
DevOps Tools
13 13%
87% 87
Continuous Deployment
15 15%
85% 85
Software Development
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Buildbot and CircleCI

Buildbot Reviews

We have no reviews of Buildbot yet.
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CircleCI Reviews

The Best Alternatives to Jenkins for Developers
CircleCI is a cloud-based CI/CD platform that has gained significant traction in recent years. With a focus on simplicity and ease of use, CircleCI offers a streamlined approach to automating your build, test, and deployment processes. One of its standout features is its strong support for Docker, making it a great choice for teams working with containerized applications.
Source: morninglif.com
Top 5 Jenkins Alternatives in 2024: Automation of IT Infrastructure Written by Uzair Ghalib on the 02nd Jan 2024
CircleCI– Get unparalleled performance and insights with CircleCI’s interactive dashboard and automatic upgrades – revolutionizing the way you build and deploy your applications.
Source: attuneops.io
Top 10 Most Popular Jenkins Alternatives for DevOps in 2024
CircleCI can be a Jenkins replacement for teams seeking a managed experience where performance and support options are priorities. CircleCI is also investing heavily in building new capabilities that cater to the pipeline requirements of apps using AI and ML.
Source: spacelift.io
35+ Of The Best CI/CD Tools: Organized By Category
CircleCI is a complete CI/CD pipeline tool. You can monitor the statuses of your various pipelines from your dashboard. Additionally, CircleCI helps you manage your build logs, access controls, and testing. It’s one of the most popular DevOps and CI/CD platforms in the world.
10 Jenkins Alternatives in 2021 for Developers
CircleCI is generally recognized for its flexibility and compatibility. Customization is obviously an important factor when making the switch from Jenkins and CircleCI certainly takes an impressive swing at providing users with a solid collection of features.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CircleCI should be more popular than Buildbot. It has been mentiond 77 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Buildbot mentions (9)

  • 10 open source tools that platform, SRE and DevOps engineers should consider in 2024.
    Buildbot is a versatile CI framework designed to automate all aspects of the software development cycle, enhancing efficiency and reliability. As an open-source platform, it is highly customizable, allowing teams to tailor the automation process to their specific needs. Buildbot excels in integrating various stages of development, from code integration, testing, to deployment, ensuring a seamless and coherent... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Continuos Integration and C++
    If you want more than the builtin CIs in Github and Gitlab, https://buildbot.net is the way. Source: about 2 years ago
  • What are the open source CI/CD tools for C++ (comparable to Ansible, Jenkins, etc.)?
    If you don't have one already integrated with your source control, buildbot is pretty nice and doesn't force you to use docker like most others. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Why Jenkins?
    Https://buildbot.net/ existed before Jenkins Hudson and was quite well known. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Which is the best CI/CD self-hosted open source tool?
    I have used python based CI tool buildbot which is a great tool but we want to move away from buildbot only because in some scenarios we want to compile low-level microseconds which are in c++ to a different architecture. Buildbot doesn't have such a feature. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
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CircleCI mentions (77)

  • Improving API Performance In Legacy Systems: A Guide for API Developers
    Tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, and CircleCI offer capabilities for parallel testing and test caching, allowing multiple tests to run simultaneously. This approach significantly reduces overall testing time and prevents unnecessary delays in deployment. Industry leaders such as Netflix and Amazon employ these practices to minimize outages and maintain high service quality. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Top 17 DevOps AI Tools [2025]
    CircleCI is a leading cloud-based platform for CI/CD that automates the software development process, enabling teams to build, test, and deploy applications with efficiency and precision. By integrating seamlessly with popular version control systems like GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket, CircleCI enhances collaboration and accelerates development cycles. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Building a serverless GenAI API with FastAPI, AWS, and CircleCI
    GitHub and CircleCI Accounts: You will need a GitHub account to host your project’s repository and a CircleCI account to automate testing and deployment through CI/CD. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • CircleCI vs. Jenkins
    CircleCI is a CI/CD platform that automates the process of building, testing, and deploying software. It helps developers integrate code changes more frequently and efficiently, ensuring that software development teams can detect and fix errors quickly. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • AIOps, DevOps, MLOps, LLMOps – What’s the Difference?
    CI/CD tools: Tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, and GitLab CI to automate the build and deployment pipeline. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Buildbot and CircleCI, you can also consider the following products

Jenkins - Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration server with 300+ plugins to support all kinds of software development

Travis CI - Simple, flexible, trustworthy CI/CD tools. Join hundreds of thousands who define tests and deployments in minutes, then scale up simply with parallel or multi-environment builds using Travis CI’s precision syntax—all with the developer in mind.

Codeship - Codeship is a fast and secure hosted Continuous Delivery platform that scales with your needs.

Drone.io - Continuous Integration For GitHub and Bitbucket That Monitors Your code For Bugs

Buddy - The simplest CI/CD tool ever made, acclaimed by top developers worldwide. It uses delivery pipelines to build, test and deploy software. Pipelines are created with over 100 ready-to-use actions, that can be arranged in any way.

JetBrains TeamCity - TeamCity is a continuous integration and build management system.